Does a prescription settle a DUI question? Montana, Virginia and Nebraska examples

For questions about a driver's license notice, the related Montana, Virginia and Nebraska DUI information pages below provide a starting point. This guide instead focuses on the wording of selected offense provisions. It does not explain a licensing notice, assess a hearing request, or decide whether a particular person may drive.

For a reader holding such a notice, the Montana, Virginia and Nebraska DUI information pages on this site, and a lawyer licensed in the state that issued the notice, are places to take that question. The rest of this guide stays with the offense question: what these statutes say about drugs, and where Montana's statute mentions a valid prescription.

Montana's statute, Mont. Code Ann. § 61-8-1002, sets out separate grounds for the offense of driving under the influence. A person commits the offense if the person drives or is in actual physical control of a vehicle in circumstances the statute describes.

The prescription phrase appears in the ground covering prohibited substances. That ground applies to "a noncommercial vehicle or commercial motor vehicle on the ways of this state open to the public while, without a valid prescription, the person has an amount of any of the following prohibited substances in their body, as shown by analysis of the person's blood, that is equal to or greater than" amounts set out in a table. The table pairs named substances with listed amounts.

Read as written, the valid-prescription condition sits inside that ground, together with its other conditions: the listed prohibited substances, the amount shown by blood analysis, the vehicle types named, and the ways of the state open to the public. This guide does not treat the condition as reaching beyond that ground. How a court applies it to a particular charge is a question for a Montana lawyer.

Separately, Montana's statute provides that a person commits the offense by driving or being in actual physical control of "a vehicle or a commercial motor vehicle upon the ways of this state open to the public while under the influence of alcohol, any drug, or a combination of alcohol and any drug." The wording of that ground does not contain the phrase "without a valid prescription."

The grounds are framed around different things. The prohibited-substance ground turns on listed substances, blood analysis and an express prescription condition. The under-the-influence ground turns on whether the person was under the influence of alcohol, any drug, or a combination. The text does not describe a prescription as excluding that ground, and it does not say a prescription is irrelevant to it either.

The section also says its alcohol-concentration inferences do not limit "the introduction of any other competent evidence bearing on the issue of whether the person was under the influence of alcohol, drugs, or a combination of alcohol and drugs." It allows a person charged with the conduct to be prosecuted under another relevant ground based on the same acts, while limiting the person to a single conviction under the section or a similar offense under previous Montana laws. It also states that absolute liability, as provided elsewhere in Montana's code, is imposed for a violation of the section.

Virginia's statute, Va. Code § 18.2-266, makes it unlawful to drive or operate any motor vehicle, engine or train in listed circumstances. Its drug ground covers a person "under the influence of any narcotic drug or any other self-administered intoxicant or drug of whatsoever nature, or any combination of such drugs, to a degree which impairs his ability to drive or operate any motor vehicle, engine or train safely."

A separate ground in Virginia's statute covers a person "under the combined influence of alcohol and any drug or drugs to a degree which impairs his ability to drive or operate any motor vehicle, engine or train safely." Like the drug ground, it is framed in terms of influence to a degree which impairs safe operation, wording that does not appear in the statute's separate ground for being under the influence of alcohol.

The statute also has a distinct ground for named substances at or above listed blood concentrations, limited to the substances it names. Its text does not expressly state whether a prescription bears on any of these grounds; that is a question for a Virginia lawyer. The statute adds that a charge alleging a violation of the section shall support a conviction under any of its listed alternatives, and that "motor vehicle" includes mopeds while operated on the public highways of Virginia.

Nebraska's statute, Neb. Rev. Stat. § 60-6,196, provides that "It shall be unlawful for any person to operate or be in the actual physical control of any motor vehicle" in listed conditions. Among them is operating or controlling a motor vehicle "While under the influence of alcoholic liquor or of any drug."

The statute's other alternatives concern a concentration of alcohol in the person's blood or in the person's breath. Those alternatives are about alcohol; they do not set a drug-testing standard, and they do not describe a medication exception.

The text of the any-drug ground does not mention prescriptions, and this section's text does not itself define "under the influence." Whether and how a prescription bears on that ground is not settled by the words of the section, and a Nebraska lawyer can address it. The statute provides that a person who operates or is in the actual physical control of a motor vehicle in a listed condition is guilty of a crime and, upon conviction, is punished as provided in other sections of Nebraska law.

Having a prescription and the driving-law question are different subjects. The statutes discussed here describe offenses: in Montana, driving or being in actual physical control of a vehicle in listed circumstances; in Virginia, driving or operating any motor vehicle, engine or train in listed circumstances; and in Nebraska, operating or being in the actual physical control of any motor vehicle in listed conditions. In the passages reviewed for this guide, the only prescription wording is Montana's "without a valid prescription" condition within its prohibited-substance ground. This guide does not cover medical questions or whether a person may obtain, have or take a particular medication.

That is why, in these examples, the statutory text alone does not show that a prescription resolves the driving question. In Montana, the prescription wording is part of the prohibited-substance ground, and the under-the-influence ground is separately worded. In Virginia, the drug and combined-influence grounds are framed around impairment of safe operation. In Nebraska, the ground covers being under the influence of any drug.

None of these texts tells a particular person whether a particular medication affected their driving, and this guide offers no medical information. Questions about how the wording applies to the facts of a case are ones a lawyer licensed in Montana, Virginia or Nebraska can answer.

Deadlines, limits and penalty ranges are set by each state’s statutes, so this page does not state them. Each state page shows them with the official source and the date they were verified — or says plainly that a figure has not been confirmed yet.